No Escape
by RT4ever
Summary: Written right after Normal Again, further dives into the story
1. Star Crossed

Okay well I don't normally write BtVS fics, but I hope you enjoy. I felt the need to write something after Normal Again. Thanks for reading in advance and please reply.  
  
~~~No Escape~~~  
  
"Is something wrong with Miss Summers?" the doctor said stopping at the door where the young nurse was looking into through the window.  
  
"It's Dr. O'Connor, he's been in there since he got back from his trip. He's just sitting there holding her hand talking to her, he hasn't moved in hours." The young nurse said looking up at the doctor.  
  
He shook his head as he looked in "You haven't been here long have you?"  
  
She shook her head "No sir, I transferred over to this hospital just a few weeks ago, actually it was right before Dr. O'Connor went to China."  
  
The doctor shook his head again "You've been here three weeks and the gossip mongrels haven't told you the story between the two of them…They must be slipping."  
  
"There's a story?" the nurse said her ears perking up with interest  
  
"Yes there's a story, a very sad one. You see Miss Summers met Dr. O'Connor when she was 14; he was 19, way before he was Dr. O'Connor. It began with her purse being stolen, he saw it happen and he ran after the guy and got it back for her, she thanked him, but they went their separate ways. Then two days later she had been walking across the street when a car ran a red light, she didn't see it, but he did and he dashed out into the street and shoved her out of the way. Luckily he narrowly avoided being hit, then he asked her she was all right and she asked if he was her guardian angel. He laughed said that no one, had ever referred to him quite like that. That was the beginning of the end for him. He couldn't resist those eyes or that smile, she lied about her age, said she was really 17. So they started seeing each other, it was platonic at first just going out for coffee, or out to the movies. They were just friends, friends that were deeply in love with each other, they called each other their angel, he'd literally saved her life and she brought meaning and a purpose to his.  
  
Their relationship was slowly changing, but he wanted to go slow, he was afraid of destroying what they had. Then the delusions started, he didn't know anything about them, she hadn't wanted to worry him. They'd made plans to meet the night after she had been brought into here, when she didn't show he got worried and kept calling her private line, the only number he had to reach her. Her parents checked her messages a day or two after she'd been brought in and the machine was full of messages from him, each one more frantic than the one before it. They had no way of contacting him though, but they didn't need to. He showed up on their doorstep later that night, that was when everything came out. Her age, their relationship, her breakdown, everything.  
  
Her parents wouldn't let him see her, but he couldn't stop loving her after a few weeks of begging with them they allowed him to go see her, but she had already slipped into a fully delusional world. But he kept coming back to the hospital everyday after his classes were done, he'd just sit there and hold her hand and tell her about his day and how much he missed her. He switched his major from business to a double major in biology and psychology. He went to med school because of her and then he came here. He's the reason, she's much better groomed than everyone else. A hairdresser comes in every few months and highlights her hair just like Buffy had always done before her collapse and cuts it to whatever trend she thinks would suit her best. Just so whenever she comes out of it, she sees what he sees and that's her glowing beauty, he sees it even when she refuses to cooperate with the nurses and doesn't get washed for days. The worse was she came out of her altered state for about three months this summer. God you should have seen how happy they were, they were planning their wedding, he was helping her get her GED. The world was perfect for them, then she got dragged back into her delusions.  
  
Six years and he never left her side, till three weeks ago when he went to China to explore some different types of Chinese medicines that might help her. I don't know if he's going to forgive himself for not being with her when she came out of it, he's positive that if he'd just been there, she could have realized that this was her reality. It was different last time, last time she'd died, so she really couldn't comprehend that this wasn't her after life, but this time, she'd seen that they weren't real, she was so close to making that final break with them."  
  
"That's so sad" the nurse said wiping her tears away  
  
"That's not all, she created him again in her delusions, she made him a vampire."  
  
"But wait" the nurse cut in "Isn't she a vampire slayer?"  
  
The doctor nodded "Exactly, she made their love impossible, she made it so that he was destroyed because of his love for her, she made it impossible for them to be together, she's recently given him a child too. You'll hear her talking about Angel, that's Dr. O'Connor, he's her great love in both of her worlds."  
  
"Oh my" the nurse said still wiping away more tears "Poor Dr. O'Connor, oh the wedding rings he wears around his neck."  
  
The doctor nodded "They were being sized when we lost her again to her delusions, and we had to remove her engagement ring after a nurse was cut by it trying to bathe her."  
  
The nurse looked into the window once again, he was still there holding her hand "Do you think she'll ever get better Doctor?"  
  
He looked into the window with her "I don't know, but if there's one thing I've learned in all my years of practice, it's to never discount the power that love has. Now come on, let's leave them alone."  
  
  
  
Inside Buffy's room:  
  
Angel/Liam just sits holding her hand "Please baby, please come back to me. This is what's real," he says taking their combined hands and placing them upon his heart and then hers. "You, me, we're real, this love is real. It's not doomed, it's not hopeless, we can be together, we can be happy if you just come back to me. You told me to move on, you told me to be happy, I can't without you though. Please baby, come back to me."  
  
"Angel" she murmured slightly tossing her head  
  
"I'm here baby, I'm right here."  
  
"I miss you, I miss you so much." She said rolling her face into her pillow.  
  
"I miss you too baby, I miss you so much." He said resting his head against her shoulder. He knew she was talking about him in her delusional world, but he didn't care. She knew how they were meant for each other in both of her worlds. There was no escaping or running from it, even though he knew she tried to. They were meant for each other, it was as simple as that. He would never leave her, even if she never got better, he would never leave her. 


	2. A Flash of Gold

Ch.2  
  
Three weeks later Buffy's bathroom:  
  
Buffy leaned back into the tub, her hair was up in a ponytail that in her opinion made her look like a character from a Dr. Seuss book. If there was one major drawback to short hair, that was it, the inability to just toss her hair up like she had always been able to do. She didn't care though, it wasn't as if anyone was going to see her. This was Buffy time, everyone was out of the house and it was just her and her bubbles. With that thought she lifted up a handful of them and watched them pop slowly, she then proceeded to blow them out across the water. She smiled and wondered how she could have forgotten the simple beauties and joy the world had to offer.  
  
Her brief lapse into madness caused by that disgusting demon was over and done with, but she didn't regret it. She may have almost killed everyone she loved, but she knew that they forgave her fully and they took as much pleasure in her new love of life as she did. No one ever mentioned it though, sometimes it seemed as if it had never happened. But she knew it had and she could still remember how badly she had wanted that other life to be what was real.  
  
She spent a lot of time thinking lately about her life before Sunnydale, her real life, not the memories that the monks had created including Dawn. She felt bad even thinking about them, so bad that she would never be able to tell anyone about them. The memories of just her, her mom and her dad, she wondered how their marriage fell apart so quickly after her problems had started. Their marriage, their love for each other, their love for her had been so strong, she had never doubted her father's love for her a single time until the divorce. Tears started to fall from her eyes and down her cheeks.  
  
"Come on Buffy, get yourself together. That's your past, you can't do anything about it." She said to herself and wiped her tears. That was when she heard him  
  
"I miss you so much." She knew that voice it was Angel's voice  
  
"Angel?" she said turning looking for him, but she was alone in the room. "Angel" she repeated again, once again no answer  
  
"Why won't you come back to me baby?" the voice continued to ask in it's soft murmured tones. "Why did I leave you to get this goddamn medicine that doesn't even work? I should have been here with you. I leave you once in six years and you choose then to wake up for real. God baby, please be strong. Fight them. Come back to me."  
  
Buffy knew now that there was no one in the room with her, no one anywhere in the house, the voice, Angel's voice was coming from inside her head. "Angel" she whispered softly, but the voice did not hear her  
  
"I don't want to wear these on my neck anymore. I want them on our fingers. Maybe we never got up in front of our entire family and pledged our love to each other, but we pledged it to each other and before God. In heaven's eyes and my own we are married. I'm going to put your wedding ring on, I want you to be able to feel it always, even when I'm not with you. Feel the circle, infinity Buffy, that's how long our love is going to last. It's forever. I, Liam take you to be my wife forever." Buffy looked at her hands as she heard the voice in her mind, as the word forever was said, she had a brief flash of a platinum band appearing on her finger, but it was gone as quickly as it came, but the voice went on "I'm not going to give up on us. I love you."  
  
"I love you too" she whispered, kissing her bare finger  
  
"Buffy, baby can you hear me. Buffy? Oh god Buffy please answer me. Please speak."  
  
Buffy couldn't speak she was stunned, but she found her voice in a harsh whisper "Angel?"  
  
"Oh god Buffy can you hear me?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Baby, it's not Angel, it's Liam. Liam Buffy, Liam, the flesh and blood man that loves you very much. Please fight, please come back to me."  
  
"Liam?" she knew Liam was Angel's name when he was mortal, but this was making no sense.  
  
"Yes Buffy Liam. Please try to focus. Remember the first time you saw my face, the first time you saw Angel's face, it wasn't in Sunnydale. Where was it?"  
  
"No I only met him here, he'd seen me before but I'd never seen him."  
  
"Yes you did Buffy. Think. There was sunlight."  
  
"There can't be sunlight, he'd die."  
  
"No Buffy please think. Think of his face in the sun. Hear the sounds of traffic around you. Feel the sunlight making you warm. Please think baby."  
  
She heard the desperation in his voice and she couldn't help but try to do something to make it better, so she thought, she tried to picture Angel in the sun. But she couldn't, she couldn't see him in the sun in anywhere but her imagination. "I can't" she said shaking her head in desperation and despair  
  
"Yes you can baby, you can do this you know you can."  
  
That was when she suddenly had a picture flash into her mind. He was laughing and his face was bright and warmed by the sun. He was young and happy and tan. His hair was disheveled. He was sitting on someone and holding a purse. "He was sitting on someone?"  
  
"Yes that's right baby. A guy stole your purse, I saw it happen and I ran after him. You chased after us both. When you caught up I was sitting on him and holding your purse. I was smiling because I saw you, I couldn't believe my luck, you were amazing, but then you left. But we were destined Buffy, you know that. You've made us star crossed lovers in your delusions, but we're always in love, even when you made me a demon, you couldn't kill our love."  
  
She wanted to believe the voice so desperately, but she knew it wasn't real, she needed more of the potion Willow had made. "This isn't real" she said with a shake of her head and the voice stopped. 


	3. Can I Be Saved?

Ch.3  
  
Buffy was curled up in a ball on her bed when Willow found her. "Buffy" Willow said quietly from the door, what had caused her best friend too look so vulnerable, so scared?  
  
"It didn't work Will" was all she said, never even looking up at Willow  
  
"What didn't work?" She said sitting down on the bed  
  
"The potion"  
  
"You saw yourself in the hospital again?"  
  
"No, it was worse or I guess not worse, but it hurt more. I heard Angel, but he said he wasn't Angel, he said his name was Liam and that was he was real and breathing and he loved me and.Oh god Will I wanted to believe him so bad.I know how horrible that is.You'd all be gone, I almost killed you all because of it.But my life was so normal once, it was the kind of life you dreamed of and then it wasn't there." She sat up in bed and looked down at where she'd seen the ring "I saw a ring here, for just a second or two I saw a wedding ring. Do you have any idea how many times I've dreamed of Angel and I like that?" with that Buffy started to break down and Willow took her into her arms and let her cry.  
  
All she could do was promise over and over again that it was going to be alright, but who knew if it actually would be. If the potion didn't work the first time, what chance did they have of it working now? 


End file.
